Page 20 of A Hutch for Hoover

“I’m too big. I’ll squash you.”

“You’re perfect. Now, lean back, relax, and let me show you what I’ve discovered.”

“Okay.” I was too tired to move anyway, and he was so solid and reassuring. “What is it?”

“I already cleaned out the nursery and put everything away while you were at work. I just hope you can find it, but I did my best.”

“You did? I didn’t mean for you to have to do all that work.” I hadn’t realized how much that bothered me until this afternoon. “But, you are the best alpha. Now, I guess we need to figure out the rest, and I won’t be lazy I promise.”

“Omega mine, you are not lazy, so don’t be saying that. But, the next part of this job is all you, anyway. I found an app where we can design a nursery online.” He lifted the tablet in front of us and swiped it open. “Look.”

My wonderful mate had thought of everything. The app let us enter the dimensions of the room and lay out the nursery, placing pieces of furniture and rugs, trying paint colors and able to see the results in 3D. And it linked us to sources for everything we chose.

The only difficulty was picking a final design. In the end, I had more fun watching Hoover and his artistic flair than doing it myself, and our baby was going to have the best nursery ever with adorable wolf pups and rabbit babies frolicking on a wall mural painted by their alpha daddy in a desert theme so much like the place I’d grown to love since moving here.

Soft tones reflecting the best of the local environment. Hoover made it beautiful for our baby, and his love for them made mine for him grow even more.

Chapter Seventeen

Hoover

My mate waddled into the kitchen, his hands resting on his huge belly. The poor guy was two weeks past the midwife’s projected due date, and he was miserable. He was done with carrying his baby inside and ready to carry him in his arms. I didn’t blame him. I was desperate to meet our little one, too.

The midwife had insisted that they were going to be here any day, a week and a half ago. So far, they’d been very wrong. But they still stopped by every other day to check on us, listening to the heartbeat, discussing the slowing movements…slowing not because the baby was in distress but because they were all out of room.

“Looking good, mate.” I crossed over and kissed his cheek.

“You’re a liar.” He scrunched his face up. “I’m not looking good. Clothes don’t fit. I’ve got a zit on my cheek the size of a small country. I’m not even sure if my shoes match because I can’t see my feet, and there are no socks because I can’t reach my feet. Oh, and my bump enters the room three days before the rest of my body gets here. So, if that all looks good, then I look amazing.”

Ugg. What I wouldn’t do to be able to help him go into labor. But we’d tried everything I could think of or find online. We walked and walked and walked until even my feet were giving out. We’d had sex repeatedly—to induce labor, not because I was mated to the hottest omega on this planet.

Fine. It was because I was mated to the hottest omega on the planet and couldn’t get enough of him, but still it was supposed to help, and it didn’t. And honestly, the further along he got, the sexier he was to me. I didn’t know I had a thing for pregnant omegas, and I suppose I probably didn’t really, but I had a thingfor my pregnant omega. There was nothing hotter than seeing his body change to accommodate our growing child. Nothing.

“Do you want me to call the midwife?” I offered.

He looked at me like I had seven heads. It seemed like a logical offer, but I’d learned that logic and this stage of pregnancy weren’t friends.

“No, I want a quesadilla.”

“You want a quesadilla?” The day before, he’d told me he never wanted to see one again.

He nodded. Quesadilla it was.

That had been his recent craving. He’d had one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past six or seven days. Then he declared this craving over, but it sounded like it was back on.

It wasn’t the first time he had a food he ate nonstop since his pregnancy began. From one meal to the next, I didn’t know if the craving would be over. After the first one, I stopped stocking up on ingredients. I’d been stuck eating cornflakes for two months after he deemed them disgusting one day after eating them for twenty-three meals in a row.

I’d never been more grateful for having cheese and tortillas in the fridge. My rabbit hadn’t been willing to leave his side for a few weeks, and food delivery took extra-long on Saturdays. He’d have been hangry for sure before they ever came.

“Did you want chicken in this one?”

He looked at me then rolled his eyes.

“Yeah…no chicken. Got it.”

“I just want—oh wait.” He scurried over to the refrigerator, opened it, and dug around until he found one of the steaks from last night’s dinner that I hadn’t finished. It had originally been for him, but then he asked for quesadillas again only to grumble about them after they were in his belly. Pregnancy was wild.

“I’m having a steak quesadilla.” He slapped it down on the cutting board and pulled out a knife to slice it. I’d have done it,but when he got this way, he seemed to prefer I let him be, and so I did.

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